Toussaint Louverture

François-Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture , also Toussaint Bréda, Toussaint-L'Ouverture (born 20 May 1743 - died April 8, 1803) was an important leader of the Haïtian Revolution and the first leader of a free Haiti. In a long struggle against the institution of slavery, he led the blacks to victory over the whites and free coloreds and secured native control over the colony in 1797 while nominally governor of the colony. He expelled the French commissioner, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, as well as the British armies, invaded Santo Domingo to free the slaves there, and wrote a constitution naming himself governor for life that established a new polity for the colony. Between the years 1800 and 1802 he tried to rebuild the collapsed economy of Haiti and reestablish commercial contacts with the United States and Great Britain. He gave the colony a taste of freedom which, after his death in exile, was gradually destroyed by a series of despots.

History

Toussaint L'Ouverture was an ancien libre or freed slave of long standing from Plaine du Nord, born the son of an Arada prince on the Bréda plantation of Bayon de Libertat, near Cap Français, and raised to speak the Fon language of his Gold Coast African ancestors, who played a decisive role in the Haitian revolution. He was literate, widely read, a fervent Catholic and a member of high degree of the Masonic Lodge of San Domingo . He joined the Spanish army where he was able to organize 4,000 blacks into a band of loyal guerrilla troops, as he was a naturally brilliant, although untrained, general. When the French Legislative Assembly decreed full equality to all Haitians on April 4, 1792, he switched his loyalty to the French, and fought the Spanish. He was also successful in leading his relatively small band of guerrilla troops against an army of British soldiers 10,000 strong. By 1795, he was in control of most of two provinces. Two of his lieutenants, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe were extremely effective. However, André Rigaud, who controlled a force of black troops in the South, was driven to renew his attacks by Toussaint's success and continued to control the South.

By June 1795, the English had been driven back to the coast and in July the Spanish officially withdrew and ceded the eastern two-thirds of the island, the location of their colony of Santo Domingo, to the French. Although the English continued to fight, Toussaint maintained his control over the North and West. In 1798, the British made a last ditch attempt to oust Toussaint from the South, sending General Thomas Maitland. Maitland failed in this attempt and signed a secret treaty making Toussaint an independent ruler. The British left Saint-Domingue completely in October 1798, leaving Rigaud and Alexander Petion in the south and Toussaint to fight against each other for control. Toussaint appointed Jean-Jacques Dessalines to govern the South Province to dismantle the remaining colored forces. Dessalines killed thousands and crushed the resistance. His brutality left bitterness among people of color. By 1799, Louverture had subordinated all remaining colored forces.

Rebellions and negotiations

News of the French Revolution of 1789, and the message of Liberté, égalité, fraternité had reached Saint-Domingue by 1790, and had a powerful impact on the island; French soldiers landing at Port-au-Prince had joined all Negroes and Mulattoes in brotherly union, and announced that the National Assembly in France had declared all men free and equal. It did not take long for the ideas of Enlightenment philosophy to spread gradually through the island; and when the promises made by Declaration of the Rights of Man were denied to the coloured population of Saint-Domingue by the white plantation owners, it served to instigate widespread slave uprisings. Louverture did not participate in the ill-fated campaign organized by Vincent Ogé (a wealthy and free coloured man) in October 1790 to claim voting rights for coloured people—a campaign which was brutally crushed. But once slave revolt broke out in the Northern Province in August 1791, Toussaint found himself wavering.

Initially, Toussaint was against the destruction and bloodshed that was being unleashed by the rebels. Though it seems certain that he was in touch with the rebel leaders, Toussaint spent many months keeping his master’s slaves in order and the revolutionary labourers from setting fire to the plantation. However, once it became clear that the lives of all white people were under threat, and the insurrection kept growing, Toussaint helped his master’s family to escape, sent his own family away to a safe spot in Spanish Saint-Domingue, and made his way to the camp of the rebel slaves who were burning plantations and killing many whites and mulattoes. Soon, he discerned the ineptitude and inefficiency of the rebel leaders, and their willingness to compromise with white radicals. Scorning these, and using his ample experience in administration and implementation of authority, he soon managed to gather a following of his own, and trained these in the tactics of guerilla warfare. In 1793, he became an aide to Georges Biassou. He rose rapidly in rank and the black army proved to be surprisingly successful against the fever-ravaged and poorly-led European troops.

After the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, when France and Spain went to war in 1793, the black commanders joined the Spaniards of Santo Domingo, the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola. Knighted and recognized as a general, Toussaint demonstrated extraordinary military ability and attracted such renowned warriors as his nephew Moïse and two future monarchs of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe. It was then that he gained the nickname L'Ouverture ("opening") because he exploited openings in the defenses of the opposition; this he adopted as his surname. Later that year, the British had occupation of most of the coastal settlements of Haiti, including Port-au-Prince.

Toussaint's victories in the north, together with mulatto successes in the south and British occupation of the coasts, brought the French close to disaster. In 1793 Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel, representatives of the French revolutionary government in Paris, offered freedom to slaves who would join them as they struggled to defeat counter-revolutionaries and fight the foreign invaders. On February 4 1794, the largely Jacobin National Convention in Paris confirmed these freeing orders, that abolished slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic. In May 1794, Toussaint went over to the French, giving as his reasons that Spain and Britain had refused to free the slaves, unlike the French, and that he had become a republican. The deceitfulness of his dealings with his former allies has come in for heavy criticism, as has his mass slaughter of Spaniards. Toussaint’s switch was decisive; the governor of Saint-Domingue, Étienne Laveaux, made Toussaint Général de Brigade, the British suffered severe reverses, and the Spaniards were expelled. Under Toussaint's increasingly influential leadership, his French army of black, mulatto, and white soldiers defeated the British and Spanish forces. Toussaint's army won seven battles in one week against the British forces in January 1794. He also fought against the uprising of the mulatto leader Pinchinat.

Campaign in support of the French Revolution

By 1795 Toussaint Louverture was widely renowned. He was revered by the blacks, and appreciated by most whites and mulattoes for helping to restore the economy of Saint-Domingue. Disregarding French revolutionary laws, he allowed many émigré planters to return, and used military discipline to force the former slaves to work. He believed that people were naturally corrupt, and felt that compulsion was needed to prevent idleness. The labourers, however, were no longer whipped; they were legally free and equal, and they shared the profits of the restored plantations. Racial tensions eased because Toussaint preached reconciliation and believed that for the blacks, a majority of whom were African born, there were lessons to be learnt from whites and Europeanized mulattoes.

Laveaux left Saint-Domingue in 1796. He was succeeded by Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, an extremist French commissioner, who also allowed Toussaint to rule and promoted him to Général de Division. But Toussaint was repelled by the proposals of this white radical to exterminate the Europeans, and found Sonthonax's atheism, coarseness, and immorality offensive. After some maneuvering, Toussaint forced Sonthonax out in 1797.

Next to go were the British, whose losses caused them to negotiate secretly with Toussaint, notwithstanding the war with France. Treaties in 1798 and 1799 secured their complete withdrawal. Lucrative trade was begun with Britain and also with the United States. In return for arms and goods, Toussaint sold sugar and promised not to invade Jamaica and the American South. The British offered to recognize him as king of an independent Haiti, but distrustful of the British because they maintained slavery, he refused. The British withdrew from Haiti in 1798.

Louverture soon rid himself of another nominal French superior, Gabriel Hédouville, who arrived in 1798 as representative of the Directory. Aware that France had no chance of restoring colonialism as long as the war with England continued, Hédouville tried pitting Louverture against the mulatto leader André Rigaud, who ruled a semi-independent state in the south. Toussaint, however, figured out his purpose and forced Hédouville to flee. Hédouville was succeeded by Philippe Roume, who deferred to the black governor. A bloody campaign in October 1799 eliminated Rigaud who was driven out and forced to flee to France,and his mulatto state destroyed. A purge that was carried out by Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the south was so brutal that reconciliation with the mulattoes was impossible.

On May 22 1799 Louverture signed a trading treaty with the British and the Americans. In the United States, Alexander Hamilton was a strong supporter. However, after Thomas Jefferson became President in 1801, he reversed the friendly American policy.

Once he had control over all of Saint-Domingue, Louverture turned to Spanish Santo Domingo, where slavery persisted. Ignoring the commands of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had become first consul of France, Toussaint overran it in January 1801, officially taking control on the 24th, and freed the slaves. Toussaint drafted a committee to write a constitution for the colony, which went into effect on July 7 1801, establishing his own authority across the whole island of Hispaniola.

Leclerc's campaign and Louverture's captivity

In command of the entire island, Toussaint dictated a constitution that made him governor general for life with near absolute powers. Catholicism was the state religion, and many revolutionary principles received ostensible sanction. There was no provision for a French official, however, because Toussaint professed himself a Frenchman and strove to convince Bonaparte of his loyalty. Louverture even wrote to Napoleon, "From the First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites." Bonaparte confirmed Toussaint’s position but saw him as an obstacle to the restoration of Saint-Domingue as a profitable colony. Denying that he was trying to reinstate slavery, Napoleon's brother-in-law Charles Leclerc attempted to regain French control of the island in 1802. He landed on the island on January 20 and moved against Toussaint. Over the following months, Toussaint's troops fought against the French but some of his officers defected to join Leclerc, as well as chief black leaders like Dessalines and Christophe. On May 7, 1802, Toussaint signed a treaty with the French in Cap-Haïtien, with the condition that there would be no return to slavery, and retired to his farm in Ennery. However, after three weeks, Leclerc sent troops to seize Louverture and his family, shipping them to France on board a warship, since he was suspected of plotting an uprising. They reached France on July 2. On August 25, 1802, Louverture was sent to the castle Fort-de-Joux in Doubs, where he was confined and interrogated repeatedly, and where he died of pneumonia in April 1803. His body was given a place of honor in the Pantheon (Paris), France..

Historical Significance

Toussaint Louverture played the key role in what was the first successful attempt by a subject slave population to throw off the yoke of Western colonialism, defeating the armies of three imperial powers, Spain, France and England. The success of this Haitian revolution had great and enduring effects on the institution of slavery throughout the New World .

Cultural references

• English poet William Wordsworth published his sonnet To Toussaint L'Ouverture in January 1803.
• Alphonse de Lamartine, a preeminent French poet and statesman of the early 19th century, wrote a verse play about Toussaint entitled Toussaint Louverture: un poeme dramatique en cinq actes (1850).
• In 1936, Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James wrote a play entitled Toussaint Louverture (later revised and retitled The Black Jacobins), which was performed at the Westminster Theatre in London and starred actors including Paul Robeson (in the title role), Robert Adams and Orlando Martins.
• In 1938 CLR James also wrote: The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. This book is considered a seminal work on Louverture and the revolution.
• In 1938, American artist Jacob Lawrence created a series of paintings about the life of Toussaint L'Ouverture, which he later adapted into a series of prints.
• The American film Lydia Bailey (1952, based on a novel by Kenneth Roberts, and directed by Jean Negulesco) is set during the Haitian Revolution. Toussaint is portrayed by the actor Ken Renard. [1]
• A film adaptation of Toussaint's life, starring Don Cheadle, began production as of July 2007. [2]
• In Frank Webb's novel, The Garies and their Friends, his portrait is a source of inspiration for the real estate tycoon, Mr. Walters.

References

• Madison Smartt Bell. "Toussaint Louverture: A Biography" (New York: Pantheon, 2007).
• David Brion Davis. "He changed the New World" Review of M.S. Bell's "Toussaint Louverture: A Biography", The New York Review of Books, May 31, 2007, pp. 54-58.
• Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus. Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804: A Brief History with Documents (2006)
• Junius P. Rodriguez, ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.
• Graham Gendall Norton - Toussaint Louverture, in History Today, April 2003.
• Arthur L. Stinchcombe. Sugar Island Slavery in the Age of Enlightenment: The Political Economy of the Caribbean World (1995).
• Ian Thomson. 'Bonjour Blanc: A Journey Through Haiti' (London, 1992). A colourful, picaresque, historically- and politically-engaged travelogue; regular asides on L'Ouverture's career.
• Martin Ros - The Night of Fire: The Black Napoleon and the Battle for Haiti (1991).
• DuPuy, Alex. Haiti in the World Economy: Class, Race, and Underdevelopment since 1700 (1989).
• Alfred N. Hunt. Haiti's Influence on Antebellum America: Slumbering Volcano in the Caribbean (1988).
• Aimé Cesaire - Toussaint Louverture (Paris, 1981). Written by a prominent French thinker, this book is well written, well argued, and well researched.
• Robert Heinl and Nancy Heinl - Written in Blood: The story of the Haitian people, 1492-1971 (1978). A bit awkward, but studded with quotations from original sources.
• Thomas Ott - The Haitian Revolution: 1789-1804 (1973). Brief, but well-researched.
• George F. Tyson, ed. - Great Lives Considered: Toussaint L'Ouverture (1973). A compilation, includes some of Toussaint's writings.
• Ralph Korngold - Citizen Toussaint (1944, reissued 1979).
• J. R. Beard - The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture: The Negro Patriot of Hayti (1853). Still in print. A pro-Toussaint history written by an Englishman. ISBN 1587420104
• J. R. Beard - Toussaint L'Ouverture: A Biography and Autobiography (1863). Out of print, but published online. Consists of the earlier "Life", supplemented by an autobiography of Toussaint written by himself.
• Victor Schoelcher - Vie de Toussaint-Louverture (1889). A sympathetic biography by a French abolitionist, with good scholarship (for the time), and generous quotation from original sources, but entertaining and readable nonetheless. Important as a source for many other biographers (e.g. C.L.R. James).
• F. J. Pamphile de Lacroix - La révolution d'Haïti (1819, reprinted 1995). Memoirs of one of the French generals involved in fighting Toussaint. Surprisingly, he esteemed his rival and wrote a long, well-documented, and generally highly regarded history of the conflict.

External links

• Toussaint L'Ouverture: A Biography and Autobiography by J. R. Beard, 1863
• A section of Bob Corbett's on-line course on the history of Haïti that deals with Toussaint's rise to power.
• The Louverture Project
• Toussaint Louverture
• Memoir of Toussaint Louverture, Written by Himself